> The reason is almost never made clear, but sex workers suspect that financial institutions fear reputational damage and liability for the facilitation of money laundering or sex trafficking.

This is nonsense. It's about minimising compliance costs. If a Stasi - ahum, compliance - officer needs to spend hours every year reviewing the source of every tip these people receive, it costs more than the bank will make from the customer. So it's cheaper to just ditch the industry. This will get a lot worse before it gets better.

The crypto industry has the exact same problem of course, which is why it's a terrible idea to use exchanges. Now the compliance officer needs to check both the source of the tips AND whatever extra rules apply for crypto payments.

This will get a lot worse before it gets any better.